1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus that can establish a
The present invention relates to an session with a sever apparatus and cause the server apparatus to perform a predetermined operation based on the session.
2. Description of the Related Art
Typically, a recent Web system has a structure as shown in FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows an exemplary system structure of a typical Web system.
Referring to FIG. 1, a Web system 500 includes a Web client 501, a Web server 502 and application servers 503 and 504, which are connected to each other via networks.
The Web client 501 may be a terminal, such as a personal computer (PC), having a Web browser. The Web server may be a Web server that, in response to receipt of a request from the Web client 501, can generate a Web page and send the generated Web page to the Web client 501.
The application servers 503 and 504 may be servers, into which operation logics are installed, that, in response to receipt of a request from the Web server 502, can perform an operation related to the operation logics and provide the operation result to the Web server 502.
It is noted that sessions are established between the Web client 501 and the Web server 502 and between the Web server 502 and the application servers 503 and 504, where there are network boundaries, so as to maintain process consistency.
In order to open a session, a user typically needs to be authenticated. For example, a user is requested to input the user name and the associated password at time of the first access to the application server 503 or 504.
However, in order to ensure security and reduce load on a machine, when a predetermined time period has passed since a session starts, the session may be invalidated due to timeout. Thus, if the Web server 502, in response to receipt of a request from the Web client 501, establishes sessions with the application servers 503 and 504, for example, the session with the application server 504 may be timed out during exchange with the application server 503.
In such a case, if the Web server 502 subsequently issues a process request to the application server 504, the Web server 502 would receive a timeout error from the application server 504. As a result, the Web server 502 may not be allowed to continue the process. Alternatively, a user of the Web client 501 may be required to input the user name and the associated password.
On the other hand, even if the session is resumed, another problem may occur in a case where a process to be executed after the recovery depends on an execution result of the corresponding process before invalidation of the session. For example, if the process after recovery is for further narrowing down a previous search result, a user is requested to manipulate the Web client 501 to execute the underlying process, for example, to instruct the Web client 501 to perform the previous search, one more time. The reason is why the result of the underlying process is cleared at the same time as the session invalidation.
In order to overcome the above problems, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 05-120232 relates to recovery of a temporary file in case of session fault in a time-sharing system. Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2003-050761 discloses a technique whereby even if a session to receive video or sound information is separated, the remaining portion of the information after the separation can be received.
However, these patent applications do not aim at the problem that a user is required to input authentication information again at time of session recovery or the problem that a user is required to manipulate for one or more operations executed before invalidation of the session.